A strategy shift in Mexico’s drug war?

Today the Baker Institute launches Viewpoints, a new series designed to provide an array of expert views on a selected topic.In our first installment, four institute fellows will examine Mexico president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposal for a paramilitary force to fight violent drug traffickers. A linchpin of Peña Nieto’s election campaign was a shift from a military-led offensive against cartels to a law enforcement approach — which includes a 40,000-troop strong gendarmerie. But will that force be effective? Or will it be yet another law enforcement agency that saps resources from Mexico’s long-term projects, such as judicial reform?

Each day through Saturday, a Baker Institute expert will offer his take on this issue. Leading off for Viewpoints is nonresident drug policy fellow Gary Hale, the former chief of intelligence for the Houston field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Paramilitary power in Mexico: A strategy shift in Mexico’s drug war

One of the many pressing issues that president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto will have to quickly address is the unrelenting violence in most regions of the country. Peña Nieto says that while he will fight organized crime with the same vigor as the outgoing administration of President Felipe Calderón, he believes that Calderón’s use of the military to combat organized crime helped perpetuate the violence in Mexico. “We can’t continue that way,” Peña Nieto said. “So we’re going to follow a strategy focused on three central crimes: murder, kidnapping and extortion. But make no mistake: it’s our duty to finish off the organized crime gangs, including drug traffickers.”

Mexico’s military was initially employed to combat the drug cartels’ growing influence during the tenure of President Vicente Fox shortly after he took office in 2000. Fox’s apparent reluctance to use regular Army troops was evident in the manner by which he deployed those soldiers. While the Army did confront criminals and lost many lives doing so, most of the units that were sent to problem areas were usually tasked with performing policing operations, that is, cleaning up what was left of the violence, and establishing a visible presence without being more aggressive than necessary.

When he took office in 2006, Calderón upped the ante by fielding military troops by the thousands, leading to the capture or death of more than half of Mexico’s “most wanted” by the end of 2011. While the military was able to make some headway against these criminal organizations, the arrests had several unanticipated consequences. Since 2006, many cartel leadership figures have been arrested but numerous new criminal bands have emerged in their place, leading to further violence among the warring factions and among criminals and government forces. The violence, in turn, spilled over into the civilian sector and Mexico’s military, most often the Army, has been accused of committing civil rights violations.

It is also apparent that Fox and Calderón used the military as a federal “band-aid” to confront criminals while Mexico’s federal and state police forces were being improved, equipped and professionalized. To that end, since at least 2006, federal police ranks have swelled with new personnel that are more educated and, in turn, better paid than before. Unfortunately, the level of professionalism reached by the federal police has not yet been attained at the state level, even though there are continuing efforts toward that end.

In a simplified sense, this is the situation that Peña Nieto faces when he takes office in January 2013: he will inherit federal and state police forces that are still short in numbers and lacking professionalism. As a result, it is unlikely that the military will be taken out of the fight immediately — or at least not until more police or other similar forces are put into service. While not a new proposal, the establishment of a paramilitary force could be the middle ground between using quasi-military forces instead of civilian police forces to confront heavily armed criminal gangs.

Peña Nieto’s proposed paramilitary police force would be larger than the current federal police, numbering approximately 40,000 troops, would ostensibly increase intelligence gathering and patrols in conflict zones, and would be composed of soldiers who had already been tested during the Calderón administration. If the president-elect chooses to form a gendarmerie, it will take many years until it is effective enough to be fielded in the combat environment that now exists throughout Mexico. Recruiting, training and equipping such units would be costly, and chain-of-command structures would have to be developed, especially considering that the Constitution calls for those units to be subordinate to the state governors. Given the levels of corruption that exist at the state and municipal levels, it is unlikely that the federal government would abdicate command-and-control of those new units to the individual states and would likely require that they be made directly subordinate to the secretary of defense.

New laws may also have to be enacted, considering that National Guard, or paramilitary units, may not have any law enforcement authority with which to investigate, conduct arrests or otherwise operate in a strictly nonmilitary manner. Properly trained, equipped and commanded, National Guard units in Mexico could serve to augment the offensive military forces that are needed to complement federal and state police forces, the latter of which are not authorized to utilize military-grade weaponry. While the idea has merit, the establishment of National Guard units in Mexico will likely be debated long before such a dramatic change to the existing military structure — and the existing relationship between military and police forces — is authorized, funded and enacted.

Gary J. Hale is the nonresident fellow in drug policy at the Baker Institute. From 2000 to 2010, he was chief of intelligence in the Houston Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. From 1990 to 1997, Hale had various assignments in Washington, D.C., including serving as chief of the Heroin Investigations Support Unit, chief of the Dangerous Drugs Intelligence Unit and liaison to the National Security Agency. During this period, he also served a tour of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia. From 1997 to 1998, Hale was assigned as the DEA intelligence chief at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.